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It’s New Carpet Day!

Well, I’m ridiculously excited to be getting new carpet in all our upstairs bedrooms today.

I’ve been wanting (but postponing) getting new carpet upstairs for YEARS. (Years, I tells ya.)

Partly, I think, I postponed because it always seemed like an awful lot of work on our end. We’ve been in this house for 15 years, and the upstairs bedroom furniture — as it exists today — has been there for probably 10 of those years. So that’s a lot of under-bed cleaning (10 years’ worth!), closet-clearing (15 years’ worth!), behind-the-dresser cleaning, behind-the-night-stand cleaning, behind-the-kids-desk cleaning, and more. Not to mention the fact that a lot of our furniture was assembled inside the bedroom it’s in (the boys’ bunkbed, for instance, with the full bed on bottom), so I wasn’t sure how anyone could get it through the doorways. And the armoire in our bedroom was a BEAST to get up the stairs — although movers did it, they barely got it around the sharp stairway corners. A beast, really.

So …. postpone, postpone, postpone.

Plus I couldn’t decide what kind of carpet I wanted. Or what color.

So … postpone, postpone, postpone.

But over the last few weekends I finally took the leap. Superman and I went out and shopped for carpet and actually made a decorating decision together. (It was surprisingly easy — I guess we wanted the same thing. We only each compromised a little on the color. I agreed to darker than I wanted and he agreed to lighter than he thought prudent.)

Anyway, over this past weekend, Chris, Nathan and I started doing all that clearing work. And it took as long as I imagined. We worked ALL DAY Saturday pulling tons of stuff out from under beds, from deep back in closets, etc. We found so much “lost” stuff behind dressers, beds and nightstands, like earrings, loose photographs, about $10 worth of change, and at least a gazillion socks. (I counted.)

Nathan’s room was atrocious. That full-size bottom bunk — which was tucked into a corner — had old Cheese-Its under there, old juice bags, another gazillion crusty socks, books, toys, dusty stuffed animals, broken toys, old party favors, Halloween costumes, lost game pieces, Legos, busted balloons, marbles, rocks, loose photos, lost homework pages, notes from friends, about $20 in coins … you name it.

In other rooms and closets, we found more lost socks, hair clips, wrapping paper, cassette tapes (!), my wedding dress (!), all kinds of crazy stuff.

Rene did her own room on Sunday, and — lucky her — she a head start: She had rearranged her room this past summer and had already done a lot of this kind of thing. All we found under her bed was an old SpongeBob balloon, a bracelet, and a silver hair pin.

That’s funny because my husband and I have been talking about new carpet for the bedroom but we don’t want to have to take out all our beasty furniture out to do it! Around here, you never know if it is gonna rain or not, so to plan it is hard. We have a slider in our room, so getting the big furniture in and out is easy if we put it out on the deck….but rain would ruin that plan. Soooo, we have been putting it off too. We got new carpet in the living room last year and I love it! It is so nice and cushy (still!), so I know all the hard work would be worth it…maybe some day =) Congrats to you! Enjoy, there is nothing like the smell of new carpet!! (except maybe the new car smell)!

Barbara, I love the description of an “archeological dig” — that’s what it felt like!!! In our master-bedroom closet, we had a piece of cardboard taped to the back of the door that had a roughly drawn “pawprint” in yellow highlighter. It occurred to me that it was drawn by RICKY when he was probably six, and he taped it up there as one of “Blues Clues.” Soooooo funny ….

Debi — I hear ya! Those all sound like reasonable reasons to postpone to me. And I won’t lie — it was exactly as much work as I imagined. And even though the carpet guys move the heavy stuff, it’s still a lot of work on your end because you have to unload some of the furniture (to make it lighter), plus items on shelves (to make it movable), etc. Somehow bedrooms just seem so much harder than living rooms!!!

If it helps you plan, we did take one whole weekend to pack stuff up, then one full week (since we both work full time) to slowly unpack. But it’s awesome. And so worth it! 🙂

Glad to hear your new carpet in the living room is still cushy and beloved!!! That means I’ll get to love mine for quite some time. 🙂 What color did you get in your living room?